San Diego, Wednesday, July 19, 2017 – Sunday, July 23, 2017 — For the past few years, I’ve been telling myself, “This is the last time I’ll go to SDCC.” I’m 40 this year. Is that too old for Comic-Con? But every year I manage to snag one of those elusive badges, I feel ridiculously lucky. Who needs sleep and sanity anyway? Not me. I need Comic-Con.
This was my eighth consecutive year attending, and honestly, the chaos only seems to get wilder. I first popped my Con cherry in 2010. That was also my first Hall H experience. Ryan Reynolds and the Green Lantern cast were scheduled for a Saturday morning panel. I woke up at 6:30 a.m., walked a mile from my hotel, and was in line by 7:30. I waited three hours to get in. Three hours! These days, that feels like a luxury. A few years back, I even camped on the sidewalk overnight for a Hall H Marvel panel, showing up around 7 p.m. Friday for a Saturday afternoon panel. Now, people wait over 24 hours, and with all the line-cutting and line direction mistakes the volunteers sometimes make, there is still no guarantee. Hard pass.
This year, I mostly took it easy. Got in Wednesday afternoon and went straight to the Tears for Fear / Hall & Oats concert (I love old people music). What wasn’t easy was waiting for the Westworld Experience. Most of my lines were under three hours, but Westworld took about 16 hours (Friday 6 p.m. to Saturday 10 a.m. — line opened at 9:30 a.m., we got to the front of the line at 10 a.m.). Luckily, the wait was inside the Hilton Bayfront Hotel with couches, air conditioning, and bathrooms, though the toilet paper shortage at 3 a.m. was rough. Waiting with a group helped too; taking shifts gave us a couple hours of rest and a chance to shower. Waiting in line for Conan ticketed seats was an early rise and shine with hours in line EVERYDAY, but it was only about 4-5 hours of waiting each morning.
Highlights this year:
- Westworld Experience + meeting the cast
- Celebrities galore! So many selfies!
- FOUR days of ConanCon (we attended every show and got every Conan Funko Pop!)
- Watching the Entertainment Weekly party from our hotel room at the Hard Rock
- Stranger Things 2 / Netflix offsite activation
- Blade Runner 2049 (blow your mind amazing)
- Finally tried Donut Bar!
- Sitting at a table directly across from Joe Keery, Natalia Dyer, and David Harbour at Nobu inside Hard Rock, and them watching me embarrass myself as I took photos of my food with a light (it was dark in there)
The Con runs Wednesday through Sunday, and I usually leave Sunday afternoon, but this year Paul and I stayed until Monday. It was so nice to wander the Con floor at a relaxed pace and enjoy off-site events without stressing about flights or packing. Sunday night, we watched Game of Thrones in our hotel room at the Hard Rock and slept a glorious 10 hours. Monday morning, we enjoyed a lazy breakfast and a couples massage before packing up and saying goodbye to San Diego. It was a little sad watching all the Con setups get torn down so quickly, but hey, there is always next year. Maybe. Who am I kidding, I’ll be there.
